


Answers

by DigUpTheBones_ButLeaveTheSoulAlone



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Growing Up, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7698682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DigUpTheBones_ButLeaveTheSoulAlone/pseuds/DigUpTheBones_ButLeaveTheSoulAlone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s sick of looking for answers.</p>
<p>	She just...wants to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Answers

Harleen is six when she first sees the bruises on her mother's wrist. She wonders aloud how she got them: mommy never really did anything physical. She was a receptionist at her father’s work. Her father, who she never really saw. Only when she wakes up in the morning. But he’s usually nose deep into a paper and leaving. He always calls her pumpkin, but doesn’t really spare her a second glance. 

Her mother has blonde hair like her--pretty and too sweet. Her mother just smiles at her and tells her reassuringly that it was an accident. Harleen is confused: she’s not quite sure why. But when she thinks about that night, she can see the ghost-like look in her mother’s eyes. Her mother avoids her father’s eyes and her father rarely touches her, but it’s not out of anger. It’s like he doesn’t even see her.

She’s distracted easily at the prospect at a new bear, though.

 

She’s nine when she finds her body. The water’s begun to overflow out from under the door of the bedroom and Harleen is hungry. She tries calling for her, but there’s no response. She thinks her mother must have fallen asleep again, she was always falling asleep and sneaking out at night. But she can’t get the door open because it’s locked. She has to use a butter knife to get the door open to her mother's bathroom. She’s screaming at her mom--what the hell is wrong with her? She’s been in there for hours!

The shower head is still going and her mother lays face down in the overflowing tub. There’s a bottle of pills--Lithium--on the ground. The floor is soaked and the bathroom smells like her mother’s soap and perfume. Her clothes are neatly tucked into a corner. She tries to move her mom, but she can’t flip her over. She screams, because her mother is stiff and won’t move. Nine year old Harleen calls the police.

They find the letter. 

Her mother had fallen in love with another man and her father wouldn’t let her leave him. She couldn’t stay like this anymore: she was miserable and so sad.

Her father was angry, throwing books and glasses in the months afterwards. Harleen didn’t understand the sadness that overflowed into her. She didn’t understand why her father sneered when he looked at her. She didn’t understand why her father was angry, and not hurt.

Her guidance counselor, Mr. Colp tells her that people deal with pain differently. He tells her that the sadness she feels is how she deals and anger is how her father deals. She still doesn’t understand the rest. Why did her mother not love her father? Why did her father not love her enough to let her go? Why did her mother not love her enough to stay?

 

She’s sixteen and she still doesn’t have the answers. She’s in love, she thinks, with a boy named Jesse. He’s attractive, smart, and popular. He’s got brown hair and blue eyes. Dimples when he smiles.

But he looks through her. Even while she’s on his arm, he does. She’s the popular girl, too. Smart as a whip--intelligent and so, so lost. She hasn’t talked to her father in a month, and he’s getting married in Hawaii in three months. She’s not invited, she has finals.

A part of her is grateful and a part of her hates it. She should have been invited. She should have been thought of, but she doesn’t really know her father. He still won’t look her in the eyes. Felicity-her father's fiance is nice. Though she’s only met her a handful of times.

She pretends to be a good girl, she really tries. She studies, she does well in school.

She’s still not happy. And she doesn’t know why.

 

She chooses Psychology. She excels at it: she really, really does well. She’s top ten in her class at Gotham University. She’s in an advanced placement.

It’s then when it all falls apart.

Her father dies in a car accident. Felicity lives, but she doesn’t speak to her much after. She stays in the apartment she and her father and mother grew up in. She changes things, moves out Harleens stuff and Harleen is incredibly aware of the feeling of not being enough, all over again.

Not enough for her mother.

Not enough for her father.

Now not enough for her step mother.

 

She meets Mr. J on the third week of her internship. He looks at her in a way she’s never been looked at before. He makes her feel special. He makes her feel wanted.

A year and a half into their three-time weekly scheduling and he asks her why she chose Psychology. Why she chose this field, because someone as beautiful as her should have become a model or an actress or something.

It makes her blush, and she hesitates.

He tilts his head, lips twitching into a smile and she feels her breath taken away by how beautiful he is. She intertwines her fingers, and breaks down the wall that’s keeping herself from answering. She wants this to work--whatever this..thing is that’s growing between them.

“I...I was looking for answers, I suppose. Why...why my mother and father acted the way they did. Why I...felt and sometimes feel.” He smiles, and it’s a vicious thing.

“That’s it, doll,” he says, shifting to move closer to her. “Let...me tell you a secret, just between you and me.” His breath fans across her face and she finds herself enthralled by him. “This world isn’t black and white. Everything’s stuck in shades of grey.” 

She feels her heart in her chest, and he looks at her again, laughing a loud drawn out laugh before he moves closer: drawing his nose across the side of her face.

She feels the air drawn out of her chest and she nearly gasps out loud. His skin is smooth and cold.

“Some questions will always be left unanswered,” he murmurs against her skin suddenly. “You deserve the world,” he mutters and leans back against the chair he was sitting in across from her. He smirks again, but Harleen finds herself unable to move.

“You and I...are meant to be.” He smiles viciously, laughing, and she finds herself laughing too.

She’s sick of looking for answers.

She just...wants to be.


End file.
